Going to have to make lots of solar carports so commuters can recharge at daytime (solar) hours. panels at my house do squat for recharging my car sitting in the sun at work.

More likely a modular battery so you can keep one on the charger during the day. Cars are smart enough now to back them selves into it to swap out!

...don't laugh, bet someone is working on it now!

Home system 4000 watt (Evergreen) array standing, with 2 Midnite Classic Lites, Midnite E-panel, Prosine 1800 and Exeltech 1100, 660 ah 24v ForkLift battery. Off grid for @16 of last 17 years. Assorted other systems, and to many panels in the closet to not do more...lol

Back in 2013 or so, California gave "Point$" to electric vehicles that could recharge in less than 15 minutes--Tesla did some dog and pony show that get them the points because they could do a battery swap in 90 seconds. But not really, it appeared to be a hoax (that they got valuable credits for).

The costs for a utility scale wind turbine range from about $1.3 million
to $2.2 million per MW of nameplate capacity installed. Most of the
commercial-scale turbines installed today are 2 MW in size and cost
roughly $3-$4 million installed.

A popular method for answering the question, if an investment is advantageous, is the comparison of the average electricity production costs and gained revenues. One part of the electricity production costs is made up by the initial investment. Typically, specific investments for a hard coal-fired power plant have been between 1,000 and 1,200 € per kilowatt hour (€/kWh) so far. Only recently these figures rose by up to 40 per cent for new contracts according to accounts received – due to great demand and also due to steel prices rising sharply. A combined cycle gas turbine plant (CCGT) fuelled with natural gas has cost 500 to 600 €/kWh up to now. There, too, are reports on price increases of 25 per cent. These increases may well be temporary and as the Moorburg power plant is already contracted, the latest increases are of no relevance and will not be considered in the profitability assessment.

Or, very roughly, 10x the cost for wind power and 1/3 to 1/4 the service life vs carbon fired power plants (capital costs) designed (and operating) for 30-40 year service life.

For onshore turbines, an expected life of 10 years is consistent with re-powering decisions over the last decade, while an expected life of 15 years seems to be the maximum consistent with the age-performance profile. For offshore turbines, the analysis uses expected lives of 15 and 20 years.

So--Now you are looking at ~30-40x the capital costs of wind power vs carbon based generation systems... And the carbon based system are "dispatchable" power (can be turned on/off/up/down based on customer power needs) vs wind power which is at the will of the weather (and not a lot of cost effective storage systems)...

Let alone the issues of killing birds, Making it difficult to live within several miles down wind of turbines do to noise, large amount of land dedicated to wind farms, etc... Yes coal mines are not very pretty/environmentally friendly either...

-Bill

Hey Bill do you have any up to date sources? As one is 10 years old, and the other is nearing 5 years.

Wind turbines are a technology, and like every other modern technology it improves exponentially, and it is also adapted exponentially like cars, computers, cellphones. There has been a vast improvement in this technology since 2007, and a bit more since 2012. Information on such technology quickly becomes outdated, it's best to narrow it within a year of age.

Here's just an example, a McKinsey report published of June 2017 predicts a 68 percent drop in offshore wind prices by 2020 and highlights since 2010, the cost of offshore is slated to drop by 68%. That is the trajectory that current cost are going.

As for bird deaths, just on done studies I have found on this subject.

350 Thousand bird deaths a year related to wind turbines.Many more studies are ongoing, so until more studies are completed, this is the best figure

2.4 Billion bird deaths related to cats. This is from domesticated cats. If you own a cat and let it be Ann outside cat, they are known to just kill for fun, and not purely based off hunger.

400 Million bird deaths related to buildings, this is from high rises and such, they run into them quite often.

To put this in some perspective, the U.S.’s newest nuclear reactor, Watts Bar Unit 2, cost $4.7 billion to build but powered 4.5 million homes.
That’s only about $1,044 per household, according to The Daily Caller
News Foundation’s calculations. This means powering a home with
the Block Island wind farm is almost 144 times more expensive than
powering a home with the newest U.S. nuclear reactor.

Interesting report on Danish off shore wind farms getting some newer ones at ~40%+ and even a ~53% capacity factor... See how that works long term. Also interesting, they did get 25 year life from their oldest wind turbine farm (not decommissioned with a lifetime capacity factor of ~21.6%):

TVA disclosed Wednesday that its board voted last month to provide up
to $200 million more to finish a second unit at Watts Bar after crews
determined work could not be finished within the $4.5 billion previously
allocated for the completion project. Since TVA began building Watts
Bar in 1973, TVA has spent more than $12 billion to finish the two
reactors — more than triple what was spent at either the twin-reactor
Sequoyah plant near Soddy-Daisy or the three-unit Browns Ferry Nuclear
Plant near Athens, Ala.

But the $4.7 billion expense of Watts Bar Unit 2 that has not already
been paid by ratepayers will be less than half the cost of similar new
nuclear plants being built in Georgia and South Carolina.

Despite the rising cost of the 1,150-megawatt reactor at the Spring
City, Tenn., plant, TVA President Bill Johnson said the new reactor at
Watts Bar "will be an outstanding investment for the people of the
Tennessee Valley."

"It will be a 60-year, maybe even an 80-year producer of carbon-free
power with a very stable fuel cost," Johnson said during an earnings
call with industry analysts Wednesday. "You have a significant capital
cost to build a nuclear reactor, but over the long term it is a
reliable, low operating cost of power."

I see one guy posting real numbers based on history while another posts numbers based on what an industry hopes to achieve. I am sure that blades may become lighter and more efficient and, probably, more expensive. That doesn't change the fact that optimal wind only blows a certain percentage of the time and we have no economical way to store energy.

The Powder River Basin in Wyoming has virtually unlimited amounts of clean burning, energy dense, anthracite coal. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal. I am in favor of burning anthracite coal in a cleaner fashion. We can easily make carbon from coal....using either phosphoric acid or steam. Carbon is marvelous for removing pollutants. Thats my idea and I have spent at least five minutes studying it.

It is human nature to very briefly consider an idea and respond with this mentality, "Well that idea isn't cheap or easy so we will poke fun of you as our response."

Government will not solve our energy problems. Government is the problem.

Lots of unknown factors for both. I think we must look at and explore non carbon energy production and I would include non-nuclear for these reasons.

The long term effects of 3 mile island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima have long term costs that are very hard to quantify. In addition their presence would become inviting targets during future conflicts. Taking out a single nuclear plant would create rolling blackouts and 2 would shut down complete areas of the grid, even if harmful radiation was not released. This would create more problems than taking out a major city and could be done with conventional weapons.

Home system 4000 watt (Evergreen) array standing, with 2 Midnite Classic Lites, Midnite E-panel, Prosine 1800 and Exeltech 1100, 660 ah 24v ForkLift battery. Off grid for @16 of last 17 years. Assorted other systems, and to many panels in the closet to not do more...lol

Probably a major issue from a large solar storm are the very large distribution transformers (particularly on the East Coast of the US with its highly interconnected power grid). This huge transformers are custom built (takes 1-2 years to build one) and moving them to the point of installation may be very difficult (rail spurs pulled up/buildings built, etc.) as part of the many decades of loss of heavy industries.

The transformers can be protected from solar events (need government to force companies to install protection devices?), or even disconnected/shutdown before a solar flare hits--At the cost of a few days of local blackouts.

What happened in Puerto Rico with loss of power... No credit card or ATM transactions. Need to have some sort of cash on hand to take care of short term needs.

The typical recommendation is to plan on 3 days on your own. I suggest 2 weeks (and for islands like Puerto Rico, 2 weeks of supplies is a minimum). But what do you do if your home is cleaned from the earth by wind and water--And your local government infrastructure is, at best, poor... It is very difficult to prepare for such an event such as a hurricane.

Tornadoes and earthquakes, while not wonderful, only damage relatively small areas--So much of the population is unaffected and able to provide support for the areas of damage/destruction.

Long term, if an island is hit (badly) once every 100 years (on average), and the population is relatively poor (not many can afford concrete block houses), relatively flat lands near sea level (storm surge, floods from rains, lack of building supplies--even lack of the correct sand for concrete is becoming a world wide issue), what can/should be done? Massive government building programs, depopulate the island, lightly built infrastructure that is completely evacuated, possibly every year to every generation, on predicted storm paths +/- and let the damage happen--then rebuild? I don't have the answers.

Future conflicts? N. Korea shoots off a couple SCUD missiles and suddenly that tiny, poor nation is hell bent on Armageddon and global conquest. However, we do face a very grave threat due to our financial irresponsibility and mind numbing debt growth. The gold reserves of the 10 largest gold mines in the world have ~4% the value of our debt. There is your dangerous conflict. Our Clear and Present Danger.

And the fact of the matter is, if you're working doing anything at sea, you've got a dangerous job. The fatality rate per man-hour for Oil rig workers is similar.

Now back to the economics, Lets start with the Gemini wind farm.

600, 4 MW Siemens turbines with a 49.5% capacity factor, 2.6 TWh/year. $78.2/MWh install cost averaged over 15 years, not including financing cost. I would guess the turbines will last at least another 10 years longer, which would bring down install cost to $47/MWh without financing included, Thats down from $140/MWh from 2009. Rising wind and solar power capacity has pushed down wholesale electricity prices across much of Europe. Very economical for that region of the world.

Lol the Daily Caller. Lets break this down and take a closer look beyond the Daily caller reduction, They leave out a lot of information, especially when pushing a narrative.

It has a population of 1000 roughly, Up until the completion of the wind farm, Block Island was isolated from the mainland grid. The Island ran off Diesel generators since 1925, it has been this was for decades. The Block Island power company had to transport about a million gallons of diesel yearly to keep the lights on for the Island, It gets very expensive to do this when your on an Island. There were huge customer’s concerns peaking in 2008 when the high cost of fuel for the generators drove electrical costs to over 60 cents per kilowatt/hour.

This is a statement from the Block Island Power company.

"Block Island electric ratepayers will see immediate relief in their electric bills. “The simplest way to explain the immediate impact to the bills is that the Fuel Cost Adjustment is going to be replaced by a Standard Offer and Transmission Charge that will be a combined 12.44 cents/kWh,” said Wright. To calculate the impact on your individual bill, replace the Fuel Cost Adjustment, which was 16.82 cents/kWh in April, with this new rate. Ratepayers have been enjoying recent relief in the form of lower Fuel Cost Adjustment charges due to lower fuel costs but that has not always been the case. The average Fuel Cost Adjustment since 2012 is 25.6 cents/kWh."

The wind farm cost about $300 million to build, It only had 5 turbines. while the cables connecting the energy distribution cost another $125 million.

Block Island residents are expected to save about $30 a month on their new power bill. They are only going to be using 1/6th of the wind farm capacity. The rest will be sold to the mainland via an interconnect.

This is why its difficult to just give a blanket cost for an energy source, It is specific to region, There are many variables.

Now onto your next Daily Caller source, The Long Island Wind farm,

this wind farm is being built by Deep Water, same company who built the Block Island wind farm, So until construction starts and everything is finalized we can only go off of whats currently on paper and not speculation.

-The project’s cost was projected at $1 billion but is now expected to be $740 million. Deepwater plans to finance the project with loans and equity investments, according to Jeffrey Grybowski, the company’s chief executive.

-The power authority, which plans to buy all of the Long Island farm’s output over 20 years, says the cost is about the same as its other renewable energy projects, about 16 cents a kilowatt-hour. Its average electricity price is 7.5 cents a kilowatt-hour, so the project is expected to add $1.19 a month to the average customer bill.

-No opposition was in evidence as the authority voted at a public meeting at its headquarters.

And that is all that is currently known, Deep water is still surveying the are, and that could change the cost of the project. Constructions probably wont start until 2020. Can rally go of much for something that has not already been built and still in the planning phase.

Now onto Nuclear, Good OL Watts Bar.

Lets get some background about Reactor 2 "Watts 2"

- It has the second longest gestation of any reactor in history, it has been listed under construction since 1973 and constructed was halted in 1985 when the reactor was 60% complete.

- It had an estimated cost of 400Milliion in 1972, Thats about 2.3 Billion adjusted for inflation since 1972. By 1985 it had used 1.7 Billion, That is $3.8 Billion in today's money adjusted for inflation since 1985.

-Construction resumed in 2007. with the total cost estimated at around $4.7 Billion,

-This brings the total cost to $8.5 billion for this reactor.

-Because of the long gestation Because of that time frame, Watts Bar 2 incorporated old technology, some of which is no longer considered acceptable in nuclear power plants today.

-Earlier this year Watts 2 had to be shut down due to failure of components of the unit’s condenser, which cools steam used to drive the generating turbines back into water.The condenser itself was part of the original construction, though TVA says it was “completely refurbished”

-TVA Senior Nuclear Manager Mark Castronova said repairing the ruptured equipment took 160,000 man-hours and cost TVA $29 million in labor and equipment costs, not even counting the tens of millions of dollars of power generation lost during the 19-week outage.

-Estimated lifespan for this reactor design is 40 to 60 years, That is the lifespan of the building not the fuel, fuel has a lifespan around 6 years depending on reactor design.

Georgia's Plant Summer project only completed on reactor in 1982. Reactor 2 and 3 were canceled in May of this year after Westinghouse Electric Company filed for bankruptcy after 9 billion of losses from its two U.S. nuclear construction projects including the South Carolina Vogtle project.

Duke Enrgy has pulled out of Voglte Nuclear project and filed for rates increase by 13.6% to cover losses from the failed project. Duke Energy instead is deciding to Invest $6 Billion for Solar (700MW), and Batteries.

Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power filed its recommendation to complete work on two new nuclear reactors on the Vogtle facility, Total costs of the Vogtle nuclear plant is likely to top $25 billion dollars and could reach over $27 billion.